WASHINGTON — Members of the U.S. Senate tasked with advancing acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s nomination to be the nation’s top law enforcer on Thursday pushed the vote one week.

The Senate Judiciary Committee’s delayed vote to send the controversial nominee to the full Senate is “per standard committee practice,” according to a spokesperson for Chairman Chuck Grassley.

The Iowa Republican and the committee’s top Democrat, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., used the time that had been allocated for the vote to comment at length on Blanche’s nomination. Grassley then recessed the session because too many Republicans were absent, which he described as “kind of rude.”

Grassley praised the selection of Blanche and said the Justice Department under his leadership as deputy and acting attorney general “has protected Americans at every turn,” but that committee Democrats “like clockwork, sought to defame him.”

Democratic committee member Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey led a forum Wednesday featuring former Department of Justice officials and a survivor of abuse by the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell. 

The witnesses questioned Blanche’s fitness to lead the Justice Department following his handling of the Epstein files release, during which several victims’ identities were unmasked, and his role is establishing a nearly $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund as part of President Donald Trump’s settlement with his own administration’s IRS.

Durbin said Thursday he and fellow Democrats oppose Blanche, who worked as Trump’s personal defense lawyer prior to his appointment to the DOJ, because he “will continue to serve the interests of Donald Trump, not the American people.”

Sen. Darline Graham joins

Committee members were scheduled to address other business, including voting on federal judicial nominees in Ohio and Oklahoma, and approving subcommittee roles for Republican Sen. Darline Graham, sister of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. She was sworn in as a senator July 14 following the sudden death of her brother.

The committee meeting marked the first for Graham, who was not yet part of the panel when members questioned Blanche for nearly five hours during a confirmation hearing July 15. Her arrival on the GOP-led committee brings the split among members back to 12 Republicans and 10 Democrats and is likely a positive development for Blanche.

Nominations require a majority vote to advance to the Senate floor. All eyes are on whether committee Republicans Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who announced his retirement last year, and John Cornyn of Texas will support Blanche after Trump effectively ended both of their Senate careers.

Trump subjected Tillis to intense criticism for opposing the Big Beautiful Bill Act in 2025 and said he would find candidates to oppose Tillis in his primary. Trump endorsed Cornyn’s primary opponent earlier this year.

Both Tillis and Cornyn pressed Blanche during his confirmation hearing about formally ending the “anti-weaponization” fund. 

While Cornyn was present at Thursday morning’s Judiciary Committee meeting, Tillis was one of several members missing. Grassley’s spokesperson attributed Tillis’ absence to a Senate Banking Committee meeting that convened just a half hour before the scheduled Judiciary Committee meeting. Tillis’ office did not immediately respond to a question about his absence.

Blanche was a prosecutor in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York from 2006 to 2014. 

He eventually left the Justice Department to work in private law and represented Trump as his personal defense attorney in three criminal cases in 2023 and 2024. 

Trump, with the approval of Senate Republicans, installed Blanche as deputy attorney general in March 2025. 

Trump announced Blanche as his pick for attorney general in early June, just over two months after former Attorney General Pam Bondi’s departure. 

WASHINGTON — Former career Department of Justice officials and a survivor of abuse by the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein sounded the alarm Wednesday on acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s fitness to lead the Department of Justice, one day ahead of a scheduled committee vote to advance his nomination to the full Senate.

The narrow committee divide, razor-thin after the death of the late Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, could mean the vote will hinge on two Republican senators spurned by President Donald Trump, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and John Cornyn of Texas.

The former DOJ staffers and Epstein survivor testified on Capitol Hill, at a forum held by Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats. 

They said Blanche’s relationship with Trump and his “mind-boggling” involvement in the president’s recent settlement with the IRS, as well as the botched release of the Epstein files, disqualifies him from becoming the nation’s top enforcer of the law.

“I don’t know what happened, but he is certainly not the person that I once worked with,” said Perry Carbone, a former federal prosecutor who worked alongside Blanche in the Southern District of New York, where Blanche served from 2006 to 2014.

Blanche eventually left the Justice Department to work in private law. He represented Trump as his personal defense attorney in three criminal cases in 2023 and 2024. Trump, with the approval of Senate Republicans, installed Blanche as deputy attorney general in March 2025. 

Trump announced Blanche as his pick for attorney general in early June, just over two months after former Attorney General Pam Bondi’s departure. 

The Department of Justice did not respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment on the hearing.

IRS deal, Minnesota probe

Carbone listed a number of reasons he believes should preclude Blanche from leading the department, including “the extraordinary IRS settlement,” the prosecution of the president’s political adversaries “on evidence that raises serious doubt about the bona fides of those cases” and efforts to “halt or interfere” with the Minnesota state investigation into the shooting deaths of U.S. citizens by federal immigration agents.

Carbone also highlighted Blanche’s “declaration of war on our judges” and the interview and relocation of Epstein co-conspirator and convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell “for what appear to be political reasons.”

“We repeat a mantra daily so that no one forgets it: ‘We do the right thing in the right way for the right reasons.’ It’s not my place to say whether the nominee has forgotten that credo. That judgment belongs to the committee. I can only tell you what I’ve observed and why it troubles someone who spent a career trying to live by that credo,” Carbone said.

He added that Blanche’s firing of department officials who investigated Trump and the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, “undermines” public confidence.

“Even the appearance of retaliation for doing one’s job sends a chilling message throughout the department,” Carbone added.

Firings, resignations

Peter Carr, a longtime department spokesperson fired by Blanche in April 2025, estimated the department has lost 19,000 employees, including 30% of its attorneys and 10% of its FBI special agents.

“That includes those who were fired, but also those who’ve been pushed out or chose to leave,” said Carr, who worked as a spokesperson for special counsel Jack Smith’s office during the Biden administration. He first joined the DOJ in 2007 under President George W. Bush.

Elizabeth Stein, an Epstein abuse survivor, expressed anger that victims’ names and images were disclosed when the DOJ published the Epstein files online, as legally mandated after Congress nearly unanimously passed legislation to force the release.

“When the Epstein files were released earlier this year, my own name was left unredacted in a sentence that read in part, ‘Stein was a victim of Epstein and Maxwell in the mid-90s.’ It doesn’t get much clearer than that,” said Stein, now a human trafficking specialist and survivor advocate for World Without Exploitation.

“The name of the school I attended, where I worked, and portions of my home address were also publicly disclosed. The very institution Congress charged with protecting survivors instead exposed us.”

‘Typical’ terms

Carbone also spoke at length about Blanche’s involvement in Trump’s settlement with the IRS. 

In exchange for Trump and his family dropping a $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS for the 2019 leak of tax returns, the DOJ ordered the establishment of a settlement fund in the amount of nearly $1.8 billion.

Blanche defended the settlement terms as “typical” during his confirmation hearing with members of the Senate Judiciary Committee on July 15.

“If this is not standard language, can you make that point for us? I think it’s really important to draw that out,” Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., asked Carbone.

The former federal prosecutor, whose career spanned 30 years, said under normal circumstances the IRS would tailor language only specifically to the matter of litigation, and possibly calculate a settlement sum.

“That’s not what this is. Some of this language is mind-boggling, and I have it here in front of me … One of the subcategories is relating to ‘lawfare and/or weaponization.’ What does that mean?” Carbone said.

Booker said the “totality of the evidence is staggering” against Blanche’s nomination.

“I want to let you all know very clearly and unequivocally that if there were just some of these issues, they would be enough to be disqualifying. … This man has had an impact already in his deputy role and now in his acting role,” Booker said at the close of the hearing.

Dramatic vote ahead

Whether Blanche’s nomination advances from the Senate Judiciary Committee depends on whether every Republican on the panel, split 11-10, supports him.

Those campaigning against Blanche’s confirmation are targeting two members — Tillis, who is retiring at the end of his term, and Cornyn.

Trump subjected Tillis to intense criticism for opposing the Big Beautiful Bill Act in 2025 and said he would find candidates to oppose Tillis in his primary. Trump endorsed Cornyn’s primary opponent earlier this year.

Just over two dozen survivors affected by abuse by Epstein and Maxwell sent a letter Tuesday to Tillis and Cornyn.

“We understand that both of you remain open to opposing his nomination, and we are asking you to stand with survivors of human trafficking and sexual assault at this critical moment,” the survivors wrote.

“Under Todd Blanche’s leadership, the Justice Department released survivors’ names, identifying information and images while the names of alleged abusers and enablers remained hidden. More than a thousand women and girls were abused, yet no one beyond Epstein and Maxwell has been prosecuted.”

The women wrote that Blanche met with them following his confirmation hearing, but that it amounted to “an hour of deflection, interruption and gaslighting.”

“Senator Tillis, when you urged Todd Blanche to meet with survivors, we believed you expected a serious and meaningful conversation. What occurred instead was a box-checking exercise arranged only after his confirmation was put at risk,” they wrote.

Common Cause North Carolina, a state arm of the national progressive advocacy group, urged Tillis in early July to vote against Blanche, who the group’s director, Brooks Fuller, said “has shown the only person he is interested in protecting and defending is President Donald Trump.”

The advocacy organization joined with other groups, including North Carolina for the People and The Justice Project, to deliver messages to Tillis’ office on July 6, according to organizers.

Tillis’ office did not respond to States Newsroom’s request for a response. Cornyn’s office said it did not have a comment at this time.